10:34 am
Wednesday 04 September 2019
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Buenos Aires – (AFP):
According to recent estimates of the Central Bank of Argentina on Tuesday, that the rate of inflation in this country located in South America will reach 55% this year, while the gross domestic product will record a decrease of 2.5%.
Before these estimates, this financial institution expected that the inflation rate would be forty percent and the contraction rate 1.4 percent.
These estimates were published, while the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange fell 11.9 percent on Tuesday, on the second day of the start of the application of monitoring the currency exchange rates imposed by the government on companies and individuals to try to reassure markets and savers.
The decree, published on Sunday in the Official Gazette, requires that exporting companies convert the dollar into the national currency, the pesos, within a specified period of between five and 15 working days after receiving the amounts, or within 180 days from the date the goods are exported.
Individuals cannot transfer any amount that exceeds ten thousand dollars or buy foreign currencies greater than this amount without the approval of the Argentine Central Bank.
The Argentine economy has been shrinking since the second quarter of 2018. The Argentine currency has lost twenty percent of its value in the past three weeks while the central bank has lost more than 12 billion pesos of its reserves.
The country is also witnessing a decline in consumption, the closure of shops, and an increase in the poverty rate (32 percent in 2018) and unemployment (10.1 percent this year).
The central bank expects GDP to drop 1.1 percent in 2020, which contrasts with its previous estimates published in July and reported growth of 2 percent.
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